Introduction

F.O.U.R. was a group formed in the winter 2008 and under the construct of The University of Toronoto at Mississauga VCC490 course on social interaction and participatory practices. The group is made up of four University students in their fourth year of study within various fields of interest. Through group actions and a seminar F.O.U.R. dealt with themes relating the Affect, Immaterial Labour, Relational Aesthetics, the Transversal and the Invisible (to name a few) as they related to not only a University setting but also to the world at large.

This Blog is a documentation of the projects and research conducted throughout the course of F.O.U.R’s investigations of social interactions and participatory practices.

- F.O.U.R.

Party! In Progress

Party! In Progress

     Party! In Progress was the manifestation of F.O.U.R.’s attempt to put affective labor to work. A decision was made to focus on the concept of affect as related to the theories of Brian Massumi, Juan Martin Prada, and Michael Hardt. The group decided that the idea of a “Party” would be the most effective way of exercising the possibilities of affective labour.

          “Affective labor is itself and directly the constitution of communities and collective subjectivities. Theoretical frameworks that have brought together Marx and Freud have conceived of affective labour using terms such as desiring production […] Each of these analyses reveal the processes whereby our laboring practices produce collective subjectivities, produce sociability, and ultimately produce society itself” (Hardt)1.

Parties in general are coded with preconceived expectations and layers of meaning. Hosting the idea of a party allowed for the production of sociability and anticipation of an event that was never fully actualized. By advertising our event as a Party! In Progress we alluded to the idea of a party without actually defining its purpose. To achieve this we sent out invitations circulated via the Internet as a way of authenticating the event for the recipient of the invitation.

     On the day of the event we provided props that are associated in the schema of a party. These props included drinks, food, decorations, and music that guests were asked to bring to the party. These props were part of designing an authentic environment in which guests could participate in, but more importantly assumed the role of affective labourer. Before the commencement of the party, guests were instructed to participate in a series of tasks, which included re-arranging and decorating the room, creating a music compilation, and preparing the food in order to create a party atmosphere. Guests were also asked to download and print their personal invitations to Party! In Progress as a token into the environment.

     These series of tasks not only aided in ‘desiring production’ but also created an atmosphere of ‘community’ and ‘sociability’ without actually having a party. It was in the preparations and anticipation of the party where the desire to engage in social collaboration occurred.

     Upon the completion of decorating the room, guests were asked to evacuate the “party space” and prepare their invitations for entry into the “party.” As a rule set by F.O.U.R., guests were prohibited entry to the space without their signed invitation. Access to the “party” was thus only available to those individuals who followed the stipulations of the “party”. As the guests waited outside the “party” venue, anticipation and excitement continued to grow. Once the guests entered the venue they were immediately informed of the real purpose of the event. At this point they realized that their labour was used to produce an event that never actually occurred. Emotions dropped from a heighted sense of excitement and anticipation to that of frustration and overall disappointment.

     In this event affective labour was used to create sociability that is usually found in the actual event of a party; instead sociability and community was found in the preparations and collaboration that took place before the “party.”

F.O.U.R.

SOURCES

1. Hardt, Michael. “Affective Labor.” Available at: http://www.vinculo-a.net/english_site/text_hardt.html

Party! In Progress Manifesto

Party! In Progress Manifesto

WE ATTEMPT TO UTILIZE THE AFFECT PRESENT WITHIN THE EXPECTATIONS OF A PARTY. THE IDEA OF A PARTY IS ONE THAT IS A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. IN ORDER FOR AN EVENT TO HAPPEN IT REQUIRES THE CONSENT AND PARTICIPATION OF A COLLECTIVE GROUP.



PEOPLE WILL ATTEND AND PARTICIPATE DUE TO SOCIAL CONVENTIONS SETUP THROUGH THE PARTICIPATION MARKING SCHEME. AFFECTIVE LABOUR OCCURS WHEN PEOPLE PLAN FOR A PARTY AND PREPARE TO ATTEND. WE BUILD UP TO A CLIMAX, ONE THAT IS NEVER FULFILLED BECAUSE THE PARTY WAS ONLY INTENTIONAL, NOT ACTUALIZED.



PARTY! IN PROGRESS HAS SETUP UP SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS AND APPARATUS IN ORDER TO EXECUTE A NO PARTY; PARTY.



1. INFORM GROUP OF THE EVENT BY SENDING OUT INVITATIONS. BUILD THE HYPE, REQUIRE THAT GUEST PRESENT INVITATION



2.URGE INVITED GUESTS TO COME PREPARED TO PARTY WITH THEIR CHOICE OF MUSIC VIA APPARATUS OF MP3 PLAYERS AND COMPACT DISCS



3. LOCATE DECORATIONS, SO AS TO PRESENT ILLUSION OF THE OCCURRENCE OF A PARTY



4.BRING CELEBRATORY CONSUMABLE ACCESSORIES. IE. FOOD, LIQUOR. DO NOT SERVE FOOD OR LIQUOR. INSTEAD PRESENT THE FOOD AND LIQUOR TO GROUP OF GUESTS BUT PLACE RESTRICTIONS ON THEIR CONSUMPTION. THIS RESTRICTION BUILDS THE HYPE OF THE PARTY, AND INTICES THEIR DESIRES



5. WHEN TIME FOR PARTY TO COMMENCE, INFORM GUESTS THAT THERE IS NO PARTY.



GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR OWN NO PARTY; PARTY. WE HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED PARTY IN PROGRESS.

F.O.U.R.

Party! In Progress - Photos/ Video

The Decorations

The Food (With Signs that read "Don't Touch")

Entry Task (Dance Off!)

The Let Down (Party's Over)

Party! In Progress Video

"Flash Mob"

The Flash Mob by Group 3

     The Flash Mob was the first collective project by Group 3. Group 3 consisted of members Andrew Munro, Ashley Rosen, Natalie Warr, and Tiana Gagic.

     The exercise of The Flash Mob was to reconstruct a red carpet event, which ironically was situated within the campus of the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Group 3 focused on the theories of Guy Debord and The Situationalists. The Flash Mob embodied the theories of The Situationalists by interrupting the regular flow of daily life. The Flash Mob was a chance to break away from the constraints of capitalism and the compartmentalization of student’s activities.

     As an initial activity, a precursor to The Flash Mob, the students of VCC 490 were instructed by Group 3 to produce awards based on random and superfluous achievements. This practice was to both glamorize that which is most banal, but to also satirize the processes of red carpet events.

     Group 3 accentuated the compartmentalization of student activity through their use of environmental spaces; namely the CCIT/Library hallway. The utilitarian hallway encoded with distinct meaning, was thus transformed into a red carpet spectacle.

          "Architecture must advance by taking as its subject emotionally moving situations, more than emotionally moving forms, as a the material it works with" (Debord 44)1.

     The Flash Mob required students of VCC 490 to bring flash cameras with them to the event. The students were to assume a mob mentality, simulating a paparazzi swarm through their use of flash cameras. The Flash Mob then infiltrated the CCIT/Library hallway by setting up a red carpet and velvet rope. Camera-toting students established themselves within the hallway assuming positions on top of benches and behind the velvet rope. This worked towards the ideas of the spectacle in which,

          "Debord put forth the idea of the spectacle as both an instrument of unification and a world vision that forged a social relationship among people in which images and
practices of gazing were central" (Sturken & Cartwright 164)2.

This transformation of the environment forced bystanders to become part of the spectacle. Students who would normally pass through the hallway to get to other buildings on campus were reincarnated as celebrities. These bystanders were forced to pass through the gauntlet, where they were bombarded with camera flashes and cheers from The Flash Mob. As a means of enticement/reward, the bystanders were given the awards the students of VCC 490 had produced along with a chocolate prize in the shape of a medal. It became almost impossible to escape the flash mob, as passage through the hallway meant undergoing the mob’s “Gaze,” or bypassing the spectacle by exiting the hallway at an earlier exit point and thus being exposed to the cold.

     The final results of Group 3’s efforts exposed the embedded codes of the University and an academic environment, while simultaneously disrupting the regular patterns of student activity and glamorizing the most common of student activities: walking.


F.O.U.R.


SOURCES

1.Debord, Guy. Situationist International. 2002nd ed. New York: MIT P, 2002. 44-51.
2.Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. The Practices of Looking: an Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2003.

Transversal and the Invisible

Transversal and the Invisible

     With the emergence of “new media” and digital art as well as the concept of relational art, comes a new form of curating. Artists and curators are no longer solely identified with the museum/gallery exhibition space. The boundaries between life and art have been broken, allowing art to simulate life, and life simulate art. With the crossing of boundaries between art and life comes “invisibility.” What is meant by “invisibility” is that it becomes difficult to distinguish the difference between what is art and what is life. At times this can become somewhat problematic because of the confusion that can occur within an individual; but this is also the beauty and the nature of this type of artwork.

          “For transversal practices to retain a critical relation to ‘Empire,’ it is important that they  remain “doggedly eye-proof.” Designations of certain practices as artworks, or         restrictions of particular activities and forms to the ‘art field’ can limit and foreclose their potential” (Kelly 1)1.

     Because this new “relational art” floats outside the hierarchy and language of the “art world,” individuals who are not part of the “art scene” are allowed access to the artwork. Relational art allows the normal individual to participate in the events of an art exhibition, sometimes without even knowing that they are part of an exhibition. The reason for this invisibility of the exhibition of the artwork is because the gallery is located outside of the traditional “gallery” setting. Sometimes relational art can take place in the street or even on the World Wide Web.

          “Guattari sought to displace the transferential process that produce what he called institutional objects and introduce open collective practices that worked across the confines of the institution itself. Broadly speaking, Guattari used the term transversality as a conceptual tool to open hitherto closed logics and hierarchies and to experiment with relations of interdependency in order to produce new assemblages and alliances” (Kelly 2)2.

The concept of transversality becomes an important aspect in the creation of collaborative, relational, and digital art, because it crosses the boundaries of various discourses.

          “According to Guattari, the new dimension of transversality moves and accelerates the spatial regulation of the geometrical concepts of horizontal and vertical” (Raunig 205)3.

     Transversal art simply means that it incorporates the concepts of several discourses within the work. For example, the computer virus that was curated and exhibited by epidemiC in the Venice Biennale. The merging of the two discourses (art and computers) allowed the work to become transversal. The computer viruses were treated as art objects that were carefully curated and organized, using the discourse of the “artistic world” to define its existence. The exhibition also acted as a public service to Internet users. With an ever-expanding use of the Internet as a site for communication and connectivity, many users are faced with the threat of a computer virus attacking their computers. This exhibition, biennale.py, allowed the visitors to the pavilion to learn about the computer viruses circling the Internet. Users were able to familiarize themselves with the unfamiliar territory of computer viruses.

     The very use of the word “virus” to describe the kinds of disruptive attacks that occur to a computer on the Internet, introduces the discourse of science and biology. Transversality is at work in epidemiC’s exhibition of the computer virus biennale.py because it includes the care and exhibition practices commonly used in the “art world,” it describes and educates individual about the threats of modern technology and the Internet, all while using a scientific discourse to describe these threats. “This work, often collaborative and concerned with issues of public and social space, the freedom of movement and of knowledge, takes on multiple forms and often works across many different sites” (Kelly 2)4. The biennale.py is put to work on multiple levels; it transcends the art world in that it is appreciated for more than just its aesthetics because it provides knowledge as well as social collaboration.

     Other forms of transversal art exist in the initiation of a collective group of individuals who call themselves PublixTheatre Caravan. This group is associated with No Border, No Nation. The caravan becomes a nomadic enterprise, which moves across borders, literally crossing the borders between European countries in an effort to publicize their ideas. “It was not until the 1980s that the first wave of transversal projects emerged, which countered the particularity and segmentation of the movements with transsectoral and successively also transnational projects” (Raunig 205-206)5. PublixTheatre Caravan did just that and became a transnational project that was collaborative as well as produced sociability and connectivity.

F.O.U.R.

SOURCES

1 & 2. Kelly, Susan. “The Transversal and the Invisible: How do you make a work of art that is not a work of art?” Available at: http:www.republicart.net/disc/mundial/kelly01_en.htm
3. Raunig, Gerald. Art and Revolution: Transversal Activism in the Long Twentieth Century. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007.
4. Kelly, Susan. “The Transversal and the Invisible: How do you make a work of art that is not a work of art?” Available at: http:www.republicart.net/disc/mundial/kelly01_en.htm
5. Raunig, Gerald. Art and Revolution: Transversal Activism in the Long Twentieth Century. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007.

Panic! At The Biblio

Panic! @ the Biblio

     Panic! @ the Biblio was F.O.U.R.’s relational remix to Group 3’s The Flash Mob. F.O.U.R. collectively arranged to meet in the Hazel McCallion Academic Centre where a study room was booked as a general meeting place. While brainstorming ideas for the relational remix, F.O.U.R. was inspired by the interior architecture of the Academic Centre; particularly the quiet study rooms on the third level that are designed in a way that call for spectacle on their own with their out facing glass walls and central alignment. The idea to transform the architecture of the building arose from concepts drawn from Guy Debord and the Situationist International. The Situationists worked towards establishing a break in daily life by creating moments of disruption and spectacle. As Gerald Raunig describes the concepts behind the Situationists’ actions

          “[…] ‘Our central idea is the construction of situations, that is to say, the concrete construction of momentary ambiances of life and their transformation into a superior passional quality’” (Raunig 171-172)1.

F.O.U.R. decided to use the idea of constructed situations to re-interpret the common use of the library study rooms on the third level. Traditionally the study rooms were designed to facilitate collaborative studying between students. The rooms can be booked via the Internet by University student user names, and are made available for 2-hour increments. The rules for the use of the study rooms are posted online in detail, and briefly stated on the doors to each study room. These rules primarily stipulate that a minimum of three people be in a room, that there be no eating, and an emphasis on quietness was strongly enforced.

     Keeping with these rules, along with the ones outlined on the website, F.O.U.R. created a new set of rules that turned the original ones on its head. F.O.U.R. transformed the study rooms into “No Study Zones,” where the rules outlined by F.O.U.R. stipulate that absolutely no studying was allowed within the rooms. Instead a series of events were constructed within the themed rooms that involved both social interactions and methods of relaxation. Some of the rooms involved were titled “The Refreshment Room,” “The Balloon Room,” “The Bubble Room,” and “The Screening Room” which would have been the rooms geared primarily towards relaxation and escapism; while “The Camera Room” and “The Drawing Room” provided a service that also allowed for artistic collaboration through traditional art forms like drawing and photography. Although before anyone could begin moving or spreading throughout the area they first had to take part in “The Briefing Room” in which the participants were informed of the new rules and regulations as they applied to the event, which feed off the original library code of conduct only with the alteration of no studying allowed. It was at this point that the concepts of relaxation and enjoyment were stressed as well as F.O.U.R.’s attempts to temporarily alter the structure internally without actually destroying the entire mechanism. Every event was designed in a way that may have taken hold of structure but did not primarily alter it in a way that would be evident once the take over was done. It was important that the event itself be the thing of value (if value must be placed) and not whatever physical trace is left. As Bourriaud points out in book on Relational Aesthetics:

          “Once the performance is over, all that remains is documentation that should not be confused with the work itself. This type of activity presupposes a contract with the viewer, an ‘arrangement’ whose clauses have tended to become diversified since the 1960s” (Bourriaud 29).

     Adapting the parasitical approach the group infiltrated the library a few hours before the scheduled event and began organizing the final stages of the event within one of the study rooms under the radar of the library staff. Soon enough, like a virus, the event would start growing internally until it eventually took over the entire third floor.

          "Even from a biological standpoint this is what happens with a virus; it derails a mechanism of the communicational type, its coding and decoding. On the other hand, it is something that is neither living nor nonliving; the virus is not a microbe" (Fuery 66)2.

The event fed off of the location and in doing so it had to exist within a state of being both visible and invisible. In that the event was located in a library, which had its own social rules of order and behavior, F.O.U.R. was disturbing these rules without actually breaking the constructed guidelines made by the library; the event had to be invisible enough to stay within the library code of conduct but visible enough to break the socially constructed ones. In the end it is these socially constructed modes of behavior that gets in the way of grand social interaction. So having an event like this, that was open to the greater university public helps move towards breaking down the effects of alienating, social constructs, and opens up better forms of collective communication.

F.O.U.R.

SOURCES
1. Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon : Les Presse du Reel, 2002.
2. Raunig, Gerald. Art and Revolution: Transversal Activism in the Long Twentieth Century. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007.
3. Fuery, Patrick, and Kelli Fuery. Visual Culture and Critical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Panic! At The Biblio - Photos from the Event

Photos from Panic! @ the Biblio - "No Study Zones"

Outside the Drawing Room

Creativity is being put to work in the Drawing Room. This room was extremely successful at creating an atmosphere of collaboration and creativity.

The Bubble Room

Participants having fun blowing bubbles. It brings back childhood memories

The Refreshment Room

Participants enjoying a cup of iced tea in the refreshment room.

The Balloon Room

A pile of balloons lay on the table waiting to be blown up by the participants of the event.

The Game Room

The Game Room was a great success. With games like scrabble, the concept of leisure and learning were fused together. Scrabble is classified as a game, but it also involves thinking and cognition while you play the game, thus creating a somewhat "academic" game. This room in particular was sustained even after the event because participants continued to play games and inhabit the space even so the event was shut down by library authorities.

The Screening Room

Screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The Drawing Room

Professor. Alison Syme contributing her artistic talents in the Drawing Room.

The Game Room

Participants who were not part of VCC 490! 

The Balloon Room

Blowing balloons.

The Refreshment Room

Cheers to a successful event!

Hallway View of the "No Study Zones"

Each of the events were contained within the study rooms.

Panic! @ the Biblio - Artwork Created During the Event from The Drawing Room

Here are some photos of the artwork that was created in The Drawing Room

Panic! @ the Biblio - Collaborative Photography Online Exhibition

Collaborative Photography Exhibition

     Panic! @ the Biblio was an event that promoted and encouraged collaboration. The Photo Room was equipped with disposable cameras in which participants were instructed to use the cameras to photograph whatever they wanted. 

     The photographs taken on these cameras was a collaborative effort. Because the camera was passed around for the participants to use, all of the photographs that were taken end up being a collaborative effort. The photographer(s) remains anonymous as well as numerous. 

     Below is an online exhibition titled Collaborative Photography